Toby Johnson's
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Initiation

On Your Own

Joseph
Campbell noted that this idea of the hero alone on his own path
is a later development in the myth. He thought this represented the
evolutionary development of the modern personal ego during the
12th-14th centuries.

Ulysses had his crew (for whom as a hero he was responsible). Achilles
led the Myrmidon army. Jesus had the apostles.

In the Arthurian legends, it is told
that after the Holy Grail appeared
to the Knights of the Round Table and then just as mysteriously
disappeared,
the knights vowed to go in quest of the Grail—meaning the Good Life
of Chivalry and Virtue, Christian holiness.

They agreed that it
would be shameful to go as a group or to follow a path that had already
been trod, that each should begin his quest in the place in the forest
that was darkest and most lost, and each should choose his own way and
none should follow in the path of another.

So they "entered into the forest, at
one point and another, there where
they saw it to be thickest, all in those places where they found no way
or path ..."

(from the thirteenth-century legend La Queste del Saint Graal).

The Grail Myth as Evolution in Consciousness

While the Grail was specifically religious—and suggested the cup
from
the Last Supper used by Jesus to "transubstantiate" wine into his
sacramental blood—it was also associated with the "Philosopher's Stone"
and the secrets
of alchemy to turn lead into gold. But even there is a deeper, more
spiritual meaning.

For the transformation of lead into gold was really
about the transformation of human vision so that the
seeker/ knight/ alchemist could experience The "Golden World," the
"Face
of God," the return to the Garden of Paradise. The Grail is about
transformation.

What was also evolving and that is
associated with the Arthurian
legends is the notion of romantic love.

Traditionally, marriages were
arranged. Marriage and human relationships were about sex
and reproduction. Love
had nothing to do with it.

In Western Europe, following the Crusades, romantic
love and so-called courtly love developed. In the Holy Land,
the Europeans discovered the Levantine honor of pleasure and sex
for pleasure for its own sake.

This is all tied into the notion of the Treasure of the
Knights Templar, with its homoerotic overtones, and the Albigensian
Heresy, with its gnostic vision of non-reproductive sex.

The feelings of the heart were given spiritual validity. Sexual and
romantic attraction were higher states than marriage for procreation
sake. That was a transformation of sex. And our modern Sexual
Revolution is a resonance of that leap of evolution.

Toby Johnson, PhDis
author of nine books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of
his
teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and
religious problems, four gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual
issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's
spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality and editor
of a collection of "myths" of gay men's consciousness.

Johnson's book
GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of
Human Consciousness won a Lambda Literary Award in 2000.

His GAY
PERSPECTIVE: Things Our [Homo]sexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe was nominated for a Lammy in 2003. They
remain
in
print.

FINDING
YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth
of the Great Secret III tells the story of Johnson's learning the
real nature of religion and myth and discovering the spiritual
qualities of gay male consciousness.